Recently, I read an article in which the author described growing up in an
eggshell. She had been told that this white shell was protective and even comforting
but she found it to be a barrier, preventing her yolk from being free. It prevented
her from knowing how to talk to God, from expressing what she couldn't find within
herself, from developing faith and from rejoicing without hesitation. Her empty soul
searched for something more but could find nothing within the shell and she could not look
outside the shell. The eggshell she described was the Adventist eggshell. I
found her sense of emptiness overwhelming but familiar for I, too, was raised in the
Adventist eggshell. But unlike the author in the eggshell, I have broken free from
my Adventist eggshell.
My Adventist eggshell was chosen for me 4 generations ago by, as family legend would
have it, a man who was "the first Adventist in Missouri." My
grandfather became an Adventist when he met my grandmother and later, lost his job at the
bank "because of the Sabbath," an appropriate sacrifice for the eggshell
lifestyle.
I was educated in the eggshell lifestyle from first grade through nursing. My
choice of career inside the eggshell was limited to one of three options --
teaching, nursing or medicine. Medical careers appealed to eggshells since healing
was acceptable "work" on the Sabbath and so would not dent the eggshell.
Music was a big part of my eggshell lifestyle, but what about those competitions and band
festivals on Sabbath? Never part of my life. That would be "breaking the
Sabbath." The eggshell grows. What about my diet? Vegetarian, of
course, but loaded with cheese and, of course, eggs. What is cholesterol, I ask my
grandmother. She has no idea, but we don't eat meat for health reasons. My
dress? Properly unadorned. Visions about being Miss America played no part of
this little girl's dreams. Miss America wore earrings, and eggshells don't wear
them. Earrings serve no function. One eggshell teacher said when eggshells get
to heaven their crowns would have clocks in them, instead of gems. The eggshell
continues. Attend movies or drama or wear makeup? "That's not what good
little Adventist girls should do" was the standard eggshell answer. We don't
know the reasons -- that is just the way eggshells are. Accept it as
gospel. What is that, by the way?
I played my predetermined role perfectly, from being a church musician to Sabbath
School teacher to numerous committees just because I didn't know I could say no. No
one said no in my family, either. No one said no to my mother's anger and rage
because that wouldn't "look good" and "we have to have peace" and
other myths and fables. So I learned to walk on eggshells. An emotional
eggshell grew.
One day, though, a small voice reached inside the eggshell -- "There is
something more than this." I began going to "non eggshell" Christian
bookstores, praying that God would protect me! After all, when one lives in an
eggshell, the slightest tap might crack the shell. Little did I know how hard the
shell really was. I read and read Christian authors like Florence Littauer and
Chuck Swindoll. A woman named Emilie penetrated my eggshell. What made these
people so different from the eggshells that I knew? How did these people know so
much about God when they didn't have "the truth" like I did?
One day I ran into another eggshell friend who talked about this Bible study she was
attending and how good it was! How could a Bible study be worthy of all this joy and
excitement? "Bible study" was only something people did to become
eggshells. Eventually, God led me to Bible Study Fellowship where I began learning
HOW MUCH I didn't know about God. After 22 years in eggshell
"Christian" schools, I knew nothing about who God was. After 30 years in
"the church," after 1560 Sabbaths in church, I still did not know my True
Sabbath Rest -- Jesus Christ.
Eventually, the eggshell of my youth cracked up. The eggshell "pillars"
crumbled in the light of Scripture. These "pillars" of the church had
blinded my vision of Christ and as the shells fell away, I realized it is Christ
that is the substance, it is He that is the yolk and what is on the inside is truly more
important than what is hanging on the outside. I am free now, free in Christ, free
to be scrambled and used in whatever service the Lord has for me.
Freedom from the eggshell was scary. I realize now how limiting it was, how in
many ways it has crippled me. I take comfort in the fact that God's strength is made
perfect in my weakness and He will use my wounds to help heal others. I worship now
on Sunday with a body of believers whose focus is on the Lord only. Not on
ourselves, not on a prophet, not on externals or on disputable matters. The focus is
on the Lord and his creating a change of heart from the yolk out. The sermons are
pure God's Word, not contaminated with bits of egg white. And His word sticks to my
yolk.
Would I ever go back to the eggshell? Never. Just as Humpty Dumpty was not
put together again, just like the children of Israel could not have gone back to Egypt
through the Red Sea, I can not go back to my eggshell.
I used to pray that God would move me away from the sea of eggshells that I live
in. But just as Jesus told the freed demoniac to stay on the island and tell what
God had done for him, he has called me to that too. So I stay and coach others as
they begin to peck at their eggshells. The General Eggshells probably aren't happy
about cracked eggs like me but it wasn't for eggshells that Christ died. It was for
freedom.
March 30, 1994 Eggshells.gac, © Geneva Chinnock